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Days of cruelty and hatred, days of fear and greed, days of gunshots, insults, tears of children: frigid days of grieving families and laughing prison guards.

Our Greek ancestors would call a time like this an Age of Iron. Such ages are only mere flickers of earlier, kinder times. Humans have “grown so wicked they will worship power; might will be right to them, and reverence for the good will cease to be.” Edith Hamilton wrote these words in a time of war, in 1940, her precursor of now, our own dark times, our wars against each other.

What to do? How not to hate those who hate you?

To celebrate long winter nights, a friend gave me a brown sphere, about the size of my fist. It had papery skin and green, blade-like wings emerging from its crown. Just looking at it helped to calm my hatred, anger, and frustration. I put it in a pail of dirt on a window sill, gave it a drink of water and began to draw it. After a few days it looked like this, phallic and vulvic at the same time.

In the next few posts I’ll draw for you how it opened itself and how I listened as it whispered and unfolded its arms.

Meanwhile:

The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers

—Basho (1644-1694)

This morning in our town I watched
an angel and a woman walking on Maple Street.
Unaccustomed to the fall of leaves
and to the laws of gravity the
angel stumbled and fell.

The woman watched in silence as it struggled to its feet.

A gray wind from our next storm scoured
a row of trees above us and filled
the air with a cloud of leaves, like a
flock of red and yellow butterflies.

Astonished with wonder, the angel watched
the butterflies (I mean the leaves)
in wide-eyed amazement, mouth open,
as if it had just beheld the Easter Bunny.
Then it fell over backwards on its rump.

The woman smiled, murmured something, watched
the angel gain its feet and wobble toward
a white-haired man – a fellow walker,
fellow-stranger –
under the bare branches.

Without a backward glance at the
woman, the celestial creature, with
incandescent gaze and utter trust, offered
a gift in its tiny hand and
placed it carefully in his.

“Good girl, Iris,” said the woman.

Not far away, only a few blocks
away, the dictator’s masked
gunmen prowl the streets.
They “deport” men and women,
children too, into unmarked
cars and “military vehicles.”

The stranger walks away in the
direction of the troops. The angel’s gift
floats above his hand, as precious
as all these mornings in Autumn.

This Saturday on the 15th of November I’ll be signing and selling copies of
Double Vision, Waking Dreams
as part of the Nevada County Local Author Showcase.

The book is a beautifully printed collector’s item: hardbound, 160 pages, featuring 80 watercolors, oils and sketches. It’s an unusual book by an unusual artist-writer, with stories — word stories, picture stories, and stories about stories

It retails at $39.95 and makes a fine gift for an artist, an art student, and any art-lover.

Nevada County Local Author Showcase
Saturday, 15 November, from 11:00- 3:00
Madelyn Helling Library (at the Rood Center)
980 Helling Way, Nevada City, CA